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In last night's game, Alex Cobb hit Nelson Cruz in the head (Baltimore Sun) with what he said was a curve ball that got away.
"I don't want to make excuses, but my front foot slipped a little bit," Cobb said. "It was a curveball; just got away from me.
"I don't think any pitcher wants to hit a guy in the head. It was a curveball. If any pitch you can hit him with, you prefer it to be that, but it still stinks to see a guy go down like that. But [I] heard he’s OK, so that’s good."
Cruz was sent for a CAT scan, which came back negative. We'll have video of the pitch up soon.
Also, Maddon officially set the rotation. No surprises: David Price, Alex Cobb, Matt Moore, Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi.
#Rays announce sellout for Monday , ninth straight home opener sold out
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) March 28, 2014
Pat Jordan of Sports on Earth wrote a profile of Chris Archer.
Jeff Zimmerman looked at ballpark strikezone factors. The Trop appears to be a slight pitchers' park.
And speaking of making it more of a pitchers' park, there was some worry about the new batters' eye restraunt, and how people behind the screen would affect vision from the plate. Topkin tweeted a good picture.
New look of Trop after #Rays add walkway, change batter's eye to The Porch pic.twitter.com/HuPMMuR6R8
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) March 28, 2014
Beyond the Box Score published their Rays preview.
FanGraphs is doing their positional rankings, and they ranked the Rays bullpen 14th. I think it's an interesting question of how good the 'pen is. As always, the Rays are counting on a few players to improve. As Eno Saris said:
So perhaps this ranking will look bad by the end of the year, but the projections only know what these pitchers have done recently, not necessarily what these pitchers can be under the tutelage in Tampa